Threat Closes Newtown Elementary School

Local officials closed a Newtown, Conn., elementary school following a threat on what would have been the first day of classes since a shooting rampage at nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Classes at Head O'Meadow Elementary School were scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET, but as parents and students arrived at the school they encountered police who turned them away.

Principal Barbara Gasparine sent an email to parents telling them that school would be closed rather than locked down due to the threats, the nature of which was not specified.

CLICK HERE FOR A TRIBUTE TO THE SHOOTING VICTIMS

"As was predicted by the police that there would be some threats, the police were prepared and have us in lockdown, which is our normal procedure. Due to the situation, students will not come to school today. Please make arrangements to keep them home," Gasparine wrote parents in an email obtained by ABC News.

Newtown police would not specify the type of threat, calling the school closure a "precautionary measure" in the wake of last week's shooting that left 20 children and six adults of Sandy Hook dead.

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting: Victims Laid to Rest Watch Video

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Sandy Hook Shooting: What Was Wrong with Adam Lanza? Watch Video

Reporters at the school to cover the arrival of Newtown students on the first day since the massacre were pushed back by police a quarter of mile away from the school.

Sandy Hook Elementary and Head O'Meadow are 4.5 miles away from each other, and in the same district.

Sandy Hook is classified an active crime scene and will remain closed "indefinitely," according to authorities.

Officials are moving furniture and supplies from Sandy Hook classrooms to a former middle school in nearby Monroe, Conn. A start date for those students has yet to be determined.

It was a somber day for many parents who sent their students back to school. Green and white ribbons adorned the grilles of Newtown school buses this morning.

There was a heavy police presence atthe schools-- 15 police departments had been called in to help with security and there were several units at each school, an officer said.

At Hawley Elementary, families walked their children to school. One tearful mother told ABC that the time is right to go back to school for her fourth grader. Another father told us that this is "a day of great sadness" but that "it will be good to get back into a routine." He addressed concerns of a premature return, saying that "There's no rulebook for this...is there ever a right day?"

At Newtown Middle School, lines of parents waited to drop off their kids. One teacher hugged a student as he exited the car. Children in school buses waved at reporters as they drove by.

And at Reed Intermediate, a memorial has been set up in the center island. Encircling the flag pole are three wreaths, bouquets of flowers, a host of green and white balloons, and what appears to be notes.

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EU urges quick trade talks after Japan vote

BRUSSELS: European Union president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso on Monday congratulated Japan's Shinzo Abe for his sweeping election win while urging the swift opening of trade talks.

"On behalf of the European Union please accept our congratulations on your success on the occasion of the recent parliamentary elections," the two said.

"We look forward to further strengthening relations between Japan and the European Union, in particular to the opening of negotiations on a deep and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement," they added in a statement.

"Above all, we wish to affirm our continued friendship and solidarity with the people and government of Japan.

EU trade ministers last month agreed to the launch of negotiations on a massive free trade deal between the two economies.

Once concluded, EU officials say such a mega-size deal could increase the bloc's gross domestic product by almost one percentage point, boost EU exports to Japan by one third, and add 420,000 extra jobs across the continent.

- AFP/fa

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DxO Labs tries making sense of camera lens sharpness

This chart shows the perceptive megapixel score for the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM mounted on the 21-megapixel Canon EOS 5D Mark II. At settings where the plot is green, the lens matches the camera's resolution. At f22 and smaller apertures, the lens-camera combination reduces the camera's effective performance to only about 4 megapixels or so.

(Credit:
screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Aiming to make it easier for photography enthusiasts to evaluate photo gear, DxO Labs today announced a new method of measuring lens sharpness it hopes will make more intuitive sense.

The idea, called the perceptual megapixel, shows how much of a camera's original sensor resolution a particular lens can preserve when factors such as lens sharpness, optical defects, and sensor pixel size are taken into account.

One example the company provides: on a 21.1-megapixel Canon 5D Mark II, the Sigma 35mm F1.4 DG lens gets a score of 17.2 perceptual megapixels and the much higher-priced Carl Zeiss Distagon T* HSM 35mm f/1.4 ZE gets only 15.2 perceptual megapixels.

The perceptual megapixel score is designed to be more practical than the time-tested but often incomprehensible measurement that prevails today, MTF (modulation transfer function) graphs. And the perceptual megapixel measurement also takes into account the camera, not just the lens.

That means, for example, that a person in the market for new photo gear could make a more informed judgement about both cameras and lenses. For example, is it worth paying a price premium for a lens on the expectation of a later upgrade to a full-frame camera body?

DxO Labs today moved to the new measurement on its DxOMark site, where it publishes test results for image sensors and lens performance scores for 2,700 combinations of lenses with particular cameras.

One example of the performance of two 35mm f1.4 lenses on the Canon 5D Mark II. The perceptive megapixel rating shows the Zeiss lens scoring lower than the Sigma lens on that particular camera.

(Credit:
DxO Labs)

One example: The Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS II mounted on an 18-megapixel Canon EOS 7D yields only about 5 perceptive megapixels of resolution shooting wide open anywhere from 55mm to 250mm and only hitting about 6 perceptive megapixels at the maximum tops.

But the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM on a 21.1-megapixel Canon EOS 5D Mark II, measures better than 20 megapixels all across its zoom range and from f2.8 to f5.6.

Of course, many other factors weigh into lens quality assessments besides sharpness, including ruggedness, vignetting, distortion, weather-sealing, image stabilization, and lens coatings that reduce lens flare and other optical drawbacks.

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The Bloody Truth About Serbia's Vampire

Garlic sales are up. Wooden crosses are a hot commodity. That can only mean one thing: Vampire on the loose!

But this isn't part of a movie script or book. It's a real-life event in the Serbian town of Zarozje (map), where last month the local council issued a public health warning that the resident vampire, Sava Savanovic, may be on the prowl. (See "Pictures: Toothless 'Vampire' Skeleton Unearthed in Bulgaria.")

The vampire scare was sparked by reports that an old mill where the vampire allegedly lived has collapsed. According to ABC News, the town's mayor Miodrag Vujetic said: "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire andthe thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else [to live] and possibly other victims is terrifying..."

Then again, how frightened should you be of a vampire who, as the story goes, can turn into a butterfly? To find out, we spoke with Mark Collins Jenkins, the author of Vampire Forensics, and forensic archeologist and anthropologist Matteo Borrini.

Is this vampire alert an effort to draw tourists or a modern-day manifestation of ancient superstitions?

MCJ: I have no idea, but I would suspect the former. I would approach the story very warily. Vampire belief might be deeply rooted in the Balkans, but I doubt you'll find any "ancient superstition" even there that hasn't been thoroughly tainted by modern vampire lore. Fangs and blood-drinking are generally not present in the oldstories. Victims were usually beaten up or suffocated.

Is it crazy that the town council issued a public health warning?

MCJ: Historically speaking, it's not that crazy. In past centuries, outbreaks ofvampire hysteria, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, often coincided with outbreaks of tuberculosis and deadly plagues. Peasants had no other way of explaining why everyone was dropping dead but by blaming it on witches and vampires or other supernatural creatures. In 19th-century New England, tuberculosis wasted entire families, one after another. Superstitious people believed that the first to die was somehow feeding on his surviving family members. (See "'Vampire of Venice' Unmasked: Plague Victim & Witch?")

Why did people begin believing in vampires?

MB: Especially between the 16th and 18th centuries, little was known about what happens to the body after death. During plagues and epidemics, mass graves were continually reopened to bury new dead. People sometimes exhumed the bodies of the diseased to look for possible causes. Reports about vampires describe exhumations weeks or months after death, during the body's decay.

MCJ: Bodies weren't embalmed back then. They rot, to be quite frank, in grossly different ways. If a bunch of people in the village started dying in mysterious ways, they'd dig up the first one to die, see that his corpse didn't look quite right, assume that was blood flowing down those cheeks (it's called purge fluid in modern forensics, a natural byproduct of decomposition, but it's not blood), and generally burn the body. End of vampire.

Savanovic supposedly survived in spirit as a butterfly. Are there other twists on the classic vampire story?

MB: Sometimes it was thought that the body turned into a wolf or dog because near the grave of the vampire, there were footsteps of these animals. Actually, the earth had been disturbed by stray and hungry dogs attracted by the smell of the decomposing body.

Why is garlic anathema to vampires?

MCJ: People used to believe that strong-smelling stuff like garlic was apotropaic, meaning able to ward off evil spirits. But the specific garlic-vampire connectionwas popularized by 19th and 20th century novels and movies. A kind of [Romany] vampire, for example, is instead deterred by burning turmeric. Garlic won't bother them.

How do modern interpretations of vampires differ from older ones?

MB: Ancient reports speak about vampires as bloated corpses of ordinary people with blood around the mouth. In the movies, the dead are charming, seductive, often aristocratic, or with superhuman powers.

MCJ: The modern fascination with vampires is fueled by books and movies. Sincethe early 19th century, that has turned on illicit romance. Forbidden love. It was somehow thrilling to cross the line and love a vampire, or to be seduced by one. Hardly any of that is in the folklore, though. (See "Vampire Expert Digs His Fangs Into 'True Blood,' 'Twilight.'")

Has there ever been any proof that a vampire existed?

MB: No. All the old reports about vampires talk about real events and real exhumation of bodies of suspected vampires. But they are misinterpretations ofthe transformative phenomena of corpses: Every exhumed vampire was actually a normal, decomposing body.

Why does this belief in vampires hang on?

MCJ: Fear of the dead. The same reason that people, deep down, are still afraid of ghosts. A vampire is a dead body brought back to life, so to speak, perhaps by the devil or an evil spirit.

MB: I think it's connected to two deep aspects of human thought: death and blood. Death is our inevitable destiny. Blood is our life fluid. The vampire connects these two aspects in a paradoxical way—it is a corpse who escapes death by drinking blood.

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Two Adult Shooting Survivors Will Be Key Witnesses

Two adult survivors who were shot and injured in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre will be integral parts of the investigation into the deadly rampage, police said today.

"Investigators will, in fact, speak with them when it's medically appropriate and they will shed a great deal of light on the facts and circumstances of this tragic investigation," Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said at a news conference today.

Both survivors are recovering from gunshot wounds in the hospital, police said. Authorities had previously mentioned one adult survivor. The adults have not been identified and police did not give details on their condition.

READ MORE: School nurse hid from gunman.

Both adults, Vance said, were wounded in the "lower extremities," but did not indicate where in the building they were when they were injured.

Moving trucks were seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School this morning, as school officials prepare to move furniture and supplies to a vacant school in enighboring Monroe.

Sandy Hook itself will remain a secure crime scene "indefinitely," said Vance.

CLICK HERE for complete coverage of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.

Police say Adam Lanza, 20, forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, spraying bullets on students and faculty. Lanza killed 20 children and six adults before turning the gun on himself.

Calls for Gun Control Surge Following Newtown Shootings Watch Video

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Newtown School Shooting: Talking to Kids About Tragedy Watch Video

Lanza also killed his mother Nancy Lanza at the home they shared before going to school.

"There are many, many witnesses that need to be interviewed," Vance said. "We will not stop until we have interviewed every last one of them."

Vance said the investigation could take weeks or months to complete. "It's not something done in 60 minutes like you see on T.V."

Some of the other key witnesses will be children who survived the shooting spree by playing dead, hiding in closets and bathrooms and being rescued by dedicated teachers.

"Any interviews with any children will be done with professionals...as appropriate," Vance said. "We'll handle that extremely delicately when the time arises."

CLICK HERE for a tribute to the shooting victims.

The first funerals for victims of the shooting are today, beginning with 6-year-olds Noah Pozner and Jack Pinto.

Officials said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the shooting took place, will be closed "indefinitely."

Both the school and the home where shootings took place are being held by police as crime scenes and Vance predicted authorities would spend "months" investigating the elementary school.

All Newtown schools are closed today to give residents more time to cope. Every school except for Sandy Hook is expected to re-open Tuesday.

The town of Monroe has offered to open Chalk Hill School, which is not currently being used, to Sandy Hill students and staff, the Newtown Board of Education said in a statement.

The neighboring community's school is expected to be ready to accommodate students in the next few days, though an exact schedule has not yet been published.

While the families grieve, federal and state authorities are working around the clock to answer the question on so many minds: "Why?"

ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to Adam Lanza from the home he shared with his mother. Three weapons were found at the school scene and a fourth was recovered from Lanza's car. Lanza had hundreds of rounds and used multiple high-capacity magazines when he went on the rampage, according to Connecticut State Police.

Vance said that every single electronic device, weapon and round will be thoroughly examined and investigated as well as every aspect of Lanza's life going "back to the date of birth."

ABC News has learned that both the shooter and his mother spent time at an area gun range; however it was not yet known whether they had shot there.

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Zebrafish made to grow pre-hands instead of fins

PERHAPS the little fish embryo shown here is dancing a jig because it has just discovered that it has legs instead of fins. Fossils show that limbs evolved from fins, but a new study shows how it may have happened, live in the lab.

Fernando Casares of the Spanish National Research Council and his colleagues injected zebrafish with the hoxd13 gene from a mouse. The protein that the gene codes for controls the development of autopods, a precursor to hands, feet and paws.

Zebrafish naturally carry hoxd13 but produce less of the protein than tetrapods - all four-limbed vertebrates and birds - do. Casares and his colleagues hoped that by injecting extra copies of the gene into the zebrafish embryos, some of their cells would make more of the protein.

One full day later, all of those fish whose cells had taken up the gene began to develop autopods instead of fins. They carried on growing for four days but then died (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2012.10.015).

"Of course, we haven't been able to grow hands," says Casares. He speculates that hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of tetrapods began expressing more hoxd13 for some reason and that this could have allowed them to evolve autopods.

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Japan moves right as conservatives win big in polls

TOKYO: Japan's conservative opposition swept to victory in national polls on Sunday, giving former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a second chance to push his hawkish security agenda and reflate the economy.

Voters dumped Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda three years after his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) promised a change from more than half a century of almost unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Noda said he would be resigning his party leadership in the wake of the drubbing.

But with turnout at a record low and voters complaining of no real choice, Abe acknowledged the result was not a ringing endorsement.

"This doesn't mean confidence in the LDP has been fully restored," Abe said.

"I think this result means a 'no' to the political confusion of the DPJ. People will be strictly watching if the LDP will be able to live up to expectations."

Abe spent the campaign pledging to bolster Japan's defences and stand up to China in a dispute over the sovereignty of a small chain of islands in the East China Sea.

As the results came in, he showed no signs of rowing back.

"China is challenging the fact that (the islands) are Japan's inherent territory," he said. "Our objective is to stop the challenge. We don't intend to worsen relations between Japan and China."

The 58-year-old, whose first stint as premier in 2006-7 ended ignominiously, has vowed to rectify the listless economy after years of deflation, made worse by a soaring currency that has squeezed exporters.

He also offered to boost spending on infrastructure at a time when much of the tsunami-wrecked northeast remains a shell of its former self.

Abe's calls were criticised by opponents as a return to the LDP's "construction state" of the last century that left the countryside riddled with underused bridges and roads to nowhere.

TV Asahi, citing forecasts based on both official results and its own exit polls, said the LDP had won at least 291 seats against 56 seats secured by the DPJ.

Together with New Komeito, its junior coalition partner, the LDP has the two-thirds majority of the 480-seat powerful chamber, enough to override the upper house in which no party has overall control, the television network said.

Analysts say the LDP's victory has come by default, with voters disenchanted by the DPJ after three years of flip-flops, policy missteps and diplomatic drift, but having little faith in any of the alternatives.

Tetsuro Kato, politics expert at Hitotsubashi University, said: "The results showed how deeply voters were disappointed with the DPJ over the past three years. It's not a landslide for the LDP but a crushing defeat for the DPJ.

"So-called non-affiliated voters had no parties to cast their ballots for. Even if they did, their votes were divided."

In the first national ballot since the tsunami-sparked meltdowns at Fukushima in March 2011, nuclear power had looked set to play a significant role. But an array of smaller parties promising an end to atomic generation made little impression.

The LDP says it will review all nuclear reactors in three years to decide whether to restart them.

Nationalist former Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, whose bid to buy the islands at the centre of the dispute with Beijing sparked months of tensions, secured a seat as leader of the third largest party.

His rabble-rousing Japan Restoration Party won between 46 and 61 seats, NHK said, giving him weight enough to shout from the parliamentary sidelines.

Public unease about a worsening security environment -- North Korea lobbed a rocket over Japan's southern islands last week and China sent a plane into Japanese airspace -- bolstered Ishihara and Abe.

As Abe's victory became apparent, China's official news agency Xinhua urged Japan to reformulate its foreign policy.

"Instead of pandering to domestic hawkish views and picking fights with its neighbours, the new Japanese leadership should take a more rational stand on foreign policy," it said.

A humbled Noda was contrite, acknowledging he had led his troops to a stinging defeat, which also saw several cabinet ministers unseated.

"I will resign as the head of the Democratic Party of Japan because I take this result seriously," he told a press conference. "I want to deeply apologise as I could not produce results."

"Politicians must take responsibility for results. The biggest responsibility for such a severe defeat lies with me as the party leader."

- AFP/fa

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Netflix, RIM, others get boot from key Nasdaq stock index

With Facebook's entry, a handful of other tech companies exit key stock index.

The shakeup that landed Facebook on Nasdaq's top 100 list is also leading to the departure of other prominent tech players.

Facebook was added last week to the Nasdaq 100, the collection of the largest 100 nonfinancial companies trading on the stock exchange. Facebook's addition to the index came with the departure of IT consulting company Infosys, which is moving over to the New York Stock Exchange.

However, Infosys is not the only tech company leaving the index. A handful of other prominent tech players, including Netflix and beleaguered handset maker Research In Motion will be dropped from the index on December 24, the stock exchange revealed late Friday.

The past 12 months have been rough on both company's stocks. Netflix recently became the target of hostile-takeover speculation following months of a lagging stock price, and RIM continues to lose market share to Apple and Samsung, which practically own the smartphone market.

But those companies are not alone in getting the boot from Nasdaq's top 100 list. Game maker Electronic Arts, chip maker Marvell Technology Group, electronics maker Flextronics International, chip equipment maker Lam Research, and Internet infrastructure provider VeriSign will also be removed. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott will join them in departing.

Taking their places on the exchange's index are Analog Devices, Catamaran Corp., Discovery Communications, Equinix, Liberty Global, Liberty Media, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, SBA Communications, Verisk Analytics, and Western Digital.

"Our objective re-ranking process ensures the Nasdaq-100 remains a relevant investable index that is the underlying benchmark for about 7,100 products in 22 countries with a notional value of about $1 trillion," Nasdaq QMX Vice President John L. Jacobs said in a statement.

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Space Pictures This Week: Frosty Mars, Mini Nile, More

Photograph by Mike Theiss, National Geographic

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, illuminates the Arctic sky in a recent picture by National Geographic photographer Mike Theiss.

A storm chaser by trade, Theiss is in the Arctic Circle on an expedition to photograph auroras, which result from collisions between charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere and gaseous particles in Earth's atmosphere.

After one particularly amazing show, he wrote on YouTube, "The lights were dancing, rolling, and twisting, and at times looked like they were close enough to touch!" (Watch his time-lapse video of the northern lights.)

Published December 14, 2012

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Conn. Shooting: Town Mourns as Police Seek Clues

Members of the shattered community of Newtown, Conn., struggling to come to grips with the loss of 20 children and six adults massacred by Adam Lanza, faced a new shock today when a threat was made against a church that many of the victims and their families attend.

The St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church was evacuated during a noon service as armed police officers swarmed around the area, after a church official became aware of a credible threat and alerted parishioners mid-service to exit the building.

About 1,000 people were gathered inside the church at the time observing one of four memorial services being held there.

Witnesses said police entered the church and told parishioners that a threat had been made against the church and the surrounding area and that everyone had to leave immediately.

More than a dozen state troopers armed with assault rifles entered the church's education center next to the church, but after a short time it was determined that threat was over.

Meanwhile, police are working to understand what set Lanza off on his rampage.

ABC News has learned that investigators have seized computers belonging to the 20-year-old from the home he shared with his mother Nancy, the same place he killed her before going to the Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he slaughtered students in two first-grade classes and teachers and staff.

CLICK HERE for full coverage of the tragedy at the elementary school.

Authorities are forensically investigating those computers and are also examining devices owned by Ryan Lanza, the gunman's older brother, to see if they can learn anything more about Adam and what caused him to snap.

Members of the community gathered today at churches across the small town, seeking comfort, clarity or just a cry.

Connecticut Shooting: Churches Services Honor Victims Watch Video

Connecticut Shooting: Pastor Explains How Girl Played Dead to Survive Watch Video

With intermittent freezing rain falling, the bells tolled at St. Rose of Lima as parishioners came for the morning service.

Little more than a week before Christmas when congregants celebrate the birth of the savior, they instead were mourning the deaths of people they knew.

Many of the victims attended the church and the clergy is preparing for the funerals of eight of the children.

As parishioners arrived at the church, many stopped at a makeshift memorial with flowers, teddy bears and candles. On large white boards, people wrote notes that express condolences, hope, and even forgiveness.

One says "Rest in Peace Sweet Angels."

After a man and woman knelt down at the memorial -- the woman overcome by grief crying into her husband's arms -- two police officers opened their cars with a delivery: bouquets of flowers and teddy bears stacked in the back of their vehicles. They delicately placed each one down and then both knelt down at the vigil.

The female officer began crying and her male partner put his arm around her to comfort her. She quickly got up, walking to her car while wiping away tears, and then they pulled away.

READ: Complete List of Sandy Hook Victims

A mother and two young daughters came next. She gripped one while she also wiped away tears. A father and his young daughter also came up, the father kneeling and talking to the girl before they slowly walked into the church.

A state police trooper was also among those dropping flowers at the memorial comprised of candles, stuffed toys and a sign that says "Sleep in heavenly peace."

Police Tracing Guns Used in Shooting

Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said there are many pieces missing in the investigation and investigators continue to work inside Sandy Hook Elementary School to collect evidence.

Key to the investigation will also be the four firearms found at or near the crime scene, he said.

"We are tracing them historically, all the way back to when they were on the workbench being assembled," Vance said.

Authorities are wrapping up their processing of the exterior crime scene, which included vehicles parked in the school's lot at the time of the shooting, Vance said, and have began to release the cars back to their owners.

Vance declined to say what evidence has or has not been collected.

"We can't take segments of an investigation and discuss that publicly because something taken out of context could be misinterpreted," he said, adding that in the end, the "goal is to answer every single question.

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